It’s hard to know what a “bistro” is these days. Once, it meant steak frites and a glass of house red, brisk service and chairs that made your back hurt. Now, in Marylebone – where the word is flung about like Maldon salt – it might mean devilled ox tongue and a £130 T-bone, or lobster rice served by someone in linen. You still get the classics: the white tablecloths, the chalked-up mirrors, the soft sort of generosity. But increasingly, you also get foie gras budgets and Michelin stars. The spirit remains. The rules? Less so.
Which makes it ripe for Fine and Dime – our monthly column comparing two restaurants circling the same theme, but at very different price points. One is the high-end splurge, the other the low-key fallback. One for payday, one for a Tuesday. The idea isn’t to pit them against each other, but to ask: what makes a place worth it, whatever you’re spending?
